During my prayer today, I rewrote Psalm 107. This took me the better part of two hours--a considerable amount of time compared to what I've spent on other individual psalms. I think it required extra time because what I wanted it to say reminded me of a Christian heresy called Pelagianism, which basically says that we human beings have what we need within ourselves to attain/earn salvation--no extra help from God (via the Christ) necessary.

The difference between Christian and Thean thought here is twofold: first, according to Theanism, salvation is not something that human beings (or Creation at large) need--there is no doctrine of "Original Sin" in Theanism. Theanism claims that we are not now nor have we ever been nor could we ever be separate from Thea, even when we do wrong or commit evil deeds. Thea's love is stronger than any individual's or community's ability to do wrong--Thea's love, which binds all Creatures together as her Sacred Body, can never be torn apart.

Second, according to Theanism, all Creatures are Thea's Incarnation. Whereas Christianity requires God's Word to be made incarnate in a single, sinless man who is sacrificed by death on a cross for the world's salvation, Theanism says that we--all of us--are Thea. Therefore we are individually and collectively all we will ever need to fulfill our ultimate purpose, which is to love and bear witness to one another, particularly by answering the passion that stirs deepest within our hearts, no matter what obstacles lay before or around or beneath or behind us. When we experience fear, doubt, or distress, as the people in Psalm 107 do, we only need to remember who we are: Thea's Sacred Body, capable of fulfilling our destiny to love if we can just turn inward to remember that love is the stuff we're made of.

Psalm 107

Give thanks to Thea, for her love is a holy flame that burns brightly within her Creatures.

Some wander in the desert, finding no way to a city where their hearts might dwell.

They hunger and thirst; their flesh languishes.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help, and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus puts their feet on a straight path to go to a city where they might dwell.

Some sit in darkness and deep gloom, bound fast in misery and iron;

They are humbled with difficult work; they stumble, and find none to help.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help, and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus leads them out of darkness and deep gloom and breaks their bonds asunder.

Some go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in deep waters;

Then a stormy wind rises up, which tosses high the waves of the sea.

They mount up to the skies and fall back to the depths; their hearts freeze because of their peril.

They reel and stagger like drunkards and are at their wits’ end.

Then they look within themselves for Thea’s help, and their divine fire melts their icy fear;

Thea thus stills the storm to a whisper and she brings them to the harbor they are bound for.

Thea’s love changes deserts into pools of water and dry land into water-springs.

She settles the hungry there, and they find a city to dwell in.

They sow fields, and plant vineyards, and bring in a fruitful harvest.

The wise will ponder these things, and consider well the holy fire of Thea that burns within.

Thea,I seek to reveal myself to you in words,and often my words feel like failures.But you see and hear and touch mewhether my words suffice or not.Behold me, Thea. Marvel at your creationas you always have.Amen.

I’d like you to pause for a moment and think about your favorite book. Think about the title, the story, and the characters. Think about the actual copy or copies of the book that you’ve read, and where you were when you last read it. By a show of hands, how many of you have read your favorite book half a dozen times or more? I reread one of my favorite books this week. My copy of Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentinahas yellowing paper, a splitting spine, and some of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met in words. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read and recommended Imagining Argentina to others. It’s a hard book to read, but the vision of hope it presents is powerful precisely because the heart of the book is so difficult. I find that lots of books and stories are great to sink my teeth into, but then there are those precious books whose stories sink into me, and my life is different—more thoughtful, more considered, more virtuous—for it. When Fr. Gil announced several months ago that I would be preaching on August 17, I looked up the lessons of the day and practically jumped for joy. The stories of the Bible we hear today from the Old Testament and the gospel are two of my favorite stories from scripture. Fast forward to earlier this week, when I read an e-mail containing a message from our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She wrote to ask the entire Episcopal Church to make today, August 17, a day of prayer for those in Iraq. It would be pretty hard not to pay attention to all the stories of what’s going on internationally these days. The Gaza Strip has been a focal point of terror between Palestine and Israel. Iraq is in the news for its highly visible genocide of Christians, among others. Thousands of militants who believe war is the only way to end war are ending the lives of innocent people, while they simultaneously inspire the uprising of new war-mongerers on every side. The desire to maintain the purity of one’s own land is the driving force behind much of this violence and prejudice. Even in our country, young unarmed men and women are being shot and killed by those who only seem to see that these young people are on the wrong side of the American color divide. Children are being detained like prisoners on our borders, in limbo between a land they cannot thrive in and a land that treats them as chaff among amber waves of grain. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. These stories echo painfully in my heart. They force me to acknowledge that that simmering hatred becomes a blazing rage in manifold ways each day among people both far away and here at home, people who claim to be driven by the call of the law, or the call of God—people like me. On this day of prayer for those innocents who are dying in Iraq, I see in today’s lessons stories that are less interesting than urgent, more deep than obvious. The story of Joseph is an epic--we first meet him as a boy, Jacob's son. His many older brothers, in a fit of collective jealousy, throw him into a well, leaving him for dead. Then they change their minds, pull him out of the well, and sell him into slavery instead, figuring they ought to get something out of him. Joseph ends up in Egypt and endures prison and other grave hardships, with no hope but God's promise to help him. Eventually he becomes Pharaoh's most trusted advisor. When we encounter him in today's lesson, his brothers have just arrived, desperate for mercy from Pharaoh’s advisor in the midst of famine. They don’t know that the powerful man before them is their brother. As Joseph prepares to reveal his identity to his brothers, he sends everyone else away. In the end, all of Egypt, even the Pharaoh's household, hears his cries when he is alone with his brothers for the first time in years. Next, in the gospel story, we hear about a Canaanite woman, a foreign woman, who comes to Jesus begging healing for her daughter who is possessed by a demon. At first Jesus ignores her, as if she weren’t even there. Then his disciples get antsy and ask him to send her away. To appease his friends, he gives her an excuse. She persists. He gives another excuse; she persists again, but this time she refers to him as master of the story that they’re creating through their dialogue, and it’s at that point where the story turns. The difficulty with these stories for me comes when I try to put myself in them. I'm not powerful Pharaoh. I’m not wise, faithful Joseph. I’m not the woman begging on her knees for her daughter's life, and I’m certainly not Jesus. When I put myself in these stories, the characters that resemble me most are the jealous, grudging brothers and the possessive, anxious disciples. I live a comfortable, privileged life. I don't easily relinquish my comfort, particularly for someone I don't like or whom I have no direct connection to. With all the horrors I read about in the news, whether in Gaza or in Iraq or in the United States, I perceive the selfishness of my fellow humans keenly, because it is that same selfishness on a grand scale that I practice on a micro-scale. I see in middle-eastern war-mongerers, as well as white-skinned insiders screaming at and threatening brown-skinned outsiders, unholy icons of the many ways in which my heart is hard and impenetrable. I cry over what I read in the news and in these scriptures, because I know how hard my heart is to break open, and I know it can't be any easier to break open any of theirs. But here's the thing: Joseph's brothers, who sent Joseph to his doom, watched as God's grace broke through their evil deeds. God’s grace revealed not only their brother who had saved all of Egypt and surrounding lands from famine, but revealed their brother who loved them more than ever.And then there’s the foreign woman from the gospel. By calling Jesus “Master,” she forces him to pay attention to her. Not only does he pay attention to her, but his understanding of what it means to be Lord is subverted by her. Through this woman’s unflagging persistence in the face of blatant rejection and humiliation, Jesus—God’s own chosen one-- perceives that his power as Lord is not just for the sake of “his people,” but for all who call on him for saving help. Through this foreign woman, God's grace breaks through the walls Jesus and his people had built against this woman, this outsider. If God can accomplish mighty, gracious deeds through possessive, jealous, rebellious hearts like those of Joseph’s brothers, and if God's grace can break through the walls that Jesus' disciples and even Jesus put up to guard their selfish interests--then perhaps God's grace can break through right here in our midst.What if the stories of war-mongerers and privileged insiders were subverted by stories more persistent and enduring than theirs? What if they were to see that they are indeed called by God--not called to hate and shut out strangers, but rather to love and to welcome and uplift them? I wonder, if we each take a moment to remember again our favorite books and stories, what we might discover about ourselves from them. What do we find most compelling? Do we embrace the bravery and outrageous kindness and selflessness that we encounter in our most beloved, imperfect characters?What if we were to embrace Joseph’s love of those who had utterly betrayed him? What if you and I embraced Jesus’ humility in accepting that we, as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, are accountable to more than just the people we call our own? What if we listened not to our own wisdom, but the wisdom that inspires us to become who we are called to be? Maybe the Word of God, Holy Sophia, would become incarnate in us as it did in Mary when she made her bold, unwavering, all-embracing “Yes.” Perhaps, if each of us said yes to the wisdom in the stories that are most precious and compelling to us, we, like Mary, would become God-bearers in the world. Perhaps then, beginning with you and me, God’s peace would spread to all lands and peoples, and then perhaps the peoples of the world, both here and elsewhere, would come at last to dwell in the everlasting peace of God.Amen.

I don't normally do evening posts, but I'm not normally blogging on vacation, either. Consider this an extraordinary post, in any sense of "extraordinary" that you wish.Recently I picked up an old journal of mine--one that I finished just before I met my husband. It's a journal that represents one of the most tumultuous periods of my life. As I reflect on the contents of that journal and the period it represents, the power of my own words takes my breath away. My life then, which could so easily be hidden or forgotten now, is recorded by my own hand. Because I took time to speak the words of my heart in those many pages, my experience from that time is memorialized forever.I remember a homily that a Benedictine priest gave once that began, "Words, words, words!" "I'm so sick of words!" Eliza Doolittle declared.Occasionally I wonder if others tire of my words, but tiring though they may be, I write them. And I write them. And I write more of them. Because in my words dwell the power of the Spirit. I am Spirit's instrument when I do this very thing, tap-tap-tapping at my computer or huddling over a journal with one of my precious pens. When I am alone, when I am fearful, when I am angry, when I am frustrated, or when I am elated, when I am ecstatic, when I am grateful, when I am joyful: I write. Writing is the meeting place between my voice and God's, and if I were ever asked to stop--well, I wouldn't stop, regardless of the cost. I cannot be other than the person I am called by God to be. And I am called to be a writer, among many other things.As I discern the fullness of my vocation, especially with regard to the possibility of becoming a Benedictine Episcopal priest, I reflect on my writing vocation. How was it planted? How was it nurtured? What was it like when I turned from it? When did I figure out that writing was not just a thing I sometimes did, but rather an identity-creating activity without which I cannot be wholly myself?

Sometimes a friendship abides only in the knowledge of what was--and sometimes that gossamer thread of what was is the only connection two people need to meet again as if not a thing had changed between them.I had a deep, soulful conversation with one of my my longest-time friends last night (on Facebook chat, of all things). This friend is someone I've scarcely talked to over the last fifteen years, but when our fingers began flying across the keyboard, it was as though all those years of growing in wildly different directions had changed nothing.

I realized something surprising as I listened to my friend reminisce: part of me--one of the best, worth-keeping-around, worth-fighting-for parts of me--has been part of me for all these fifteen years, and probably more.Sometimes my inclination is to tell myself that the best parts of myself have only emerged recently (i.e. since I've fully and intentionally embraced who I'm called by God to be), but that story isn't true. I've just had trouble naming or owning some of them before now.In what ways do I allow the resurrected aspects of myself overshadow or swallow up the life-giving aspects of the life I lived before? In what ways do my life now match (or perhaps pale in comparison to) my past? What might I learn about my old-time self from the words of the people I love if I listened to them talk about me, and what about my old life do I still need to invite forward as I live my Easter life?

I've spent much of this Lent steeping my heart in words: words from my prayer books, words from scripture, words from novels, and words from those I love.I recently read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a medieval story that follows the rhythm of the monastic daily office. Now I'm reading D.L. Smith's The Miracles of Santa Fico, a story that my friend, Denise, promises will illuminate Holy Week. Soon I will reread Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, one of the most influential books of my life (whose contents are summed up in the title).In what ways do the stories I read and hear shape the story of my life? As I approach the liminal liturgy of Triduum that serves as the gateway between Lent and Easter, what stories should I embrace as truth-bearers, and what stories should I relinquish as deceivers?

Caryll Houselander wrote a little book over fifty years ago about the mother of Jesus called The Reed of God. Houselander's idea is that Mary became the reed through which God's Word was played into the world.When I first read this a few months ago, my old religious context had me shaking my head. I didn't like the idea that Mary was merely a reed for God to play as God chose. Mary is always merely this or that--merely a woman, merely a vessel, merely an obedient human--and it touched a little too close to my own experience as a woman in the Roman Catholic Church, which was an experience of being lesser, lower, and either diminutive or diminished.Today, however, is the Matronal Feastday of my community, the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, and I find myself regarding Houselander's metaphor with new appreciation. In my present context, where to be a woman is not "merely" anything, but rather a strength and a tremendous gift, I can see the reed metaphor with awe and wonder. If Mary was not merely obedient, but radically and willfully obedient, I can get on board. If she allowed God transform her into the most beautiful instrument of music the world has ever known, rather than simply accepting God was going to do what God wanted, then Mary may be the greatest heroine I've ever encountered. I behold myself in her, a woman lifted up and honored fully for who she is and what she brings to the table, and I, like Mary, am choosing to let go of less important schemes so God can act through me. I see myself becoming a reed of God because I trust the music God can breathe into and through me is awesome beyond what I might produce alone.I see in this book, and in today's feast, a celebration of a strong woman who allowed herself to be made even stronger, a capable woman who allowed herself to become even more capable, a powerful woman who allowed the greatest power in all the universe to take root in her, to become her very flesh. She could have said no. Her yes wasn't the obvious choice. Her yes, as I understand it, was a considered choice. She perceived that God was inviting her to allow God to be born into the world through her. What an invitation.Mary is often seen to be extraordinary because she's a nothing who's turned into a something when God deigns to dwell in her. I don't buy this. Mary is no mere Sleeping Beauty, waiting for something to be done to her to give her life meaning. Mary is Merida, brave and bold and primed for adventure--and she is called to this adventure because she cultivated an adventurous life long ago. God rarely calls people out of the blue. God calls people to do in extraordinary ways what they already do well. Mary was already making her own beautiful music for those around her when she was asked if she would be the instrument for God's music. She was no arbitrary choice. She, a Jewish woman who would never have been chosen for anything important in her patriarchal world, was the best possible choice to bring forth God's Word in a world filled with lesser words. God was calling her to subvert the status quo, and she was ready. All she had to do was say "Yes" for the fate of the whole world to change.May I give a well-considered, powerful yes when God invites me to allow divinity to make a dwelling-place deep within me, and may I bear God's marvelous, life-giving, death-destroying fruit wherever I go. For I am no mere woman. I am a woman: brave and strong and fit to do God's most important work. When God asks me to be the key player in God's next adventure, I'll have my Benedictine running shoes laced up and ready to go.